Building Up the Soil

Here's my plan for the sod field I plowed. I'm thinking of sowing buckwheat as green manure, plow it under, re-seed with buckwheat, plow down and plant wheat in August. Good plan or scrap it?

Larry in Michigan

Why not have soil tested, add fertilizer and plant a cash crop you can harvest this year. Winter fallow it,till and plant cash crop again next spring.

When I was a kid we would plant rye in the fall and plow it down in the spring. Worked real good for us.

Don't know the soil types in your area but by plowing it twice in one year you have much more potential to loose more soil thru erosion than you could ever gain from plow down buck wheat. What Adirondack case guy suggests sounds like a much better way to go.

You still ahve time to put on some fertilizer, plant some early maturity soybeans, and combine before you need to plant wheat. Don't plant wheat in August, wait until the fly-free date in your area, around the end of September. You can sow wheat until late October most years in Michigan.

Sod should have a lot of om you just plowed down.

Is there some reason you don"t want to make any money from the field this year?You coulda harvested it for hay as it was, or you could plant soybeans on it this spring.

Wasting 2 crops of buckwheat, doing 3 heavy tillage operations in 12 months, I"m not getting what that accompishes but waste a lot of fuel & topsiol.

Sounds like something that came out of a book from someone who never actually farmed.....

Don"t mean to be harsh or critical - I"m sure the rest aren"t either, just if you want to farm, get to farming. That means raise something you can harvest.

If you want a plowdown to build the soil, plant spring wheat next year, put clover/alfalfa mix in it, harvest the wheat & straw, the legumes will ad N to the ground.

Tillage radishes planted after wheat will go deep & pull up nutrients from the subsoil, also help break up hardpan, as the radish decomposes the next spring itreleases the nutrients it brings up. _IF_ you have any nutirients in deeper to pull up....

Rye planted in fall will help with weed control & build biomass in very cool temps, moreso than anything else. Helps hold soil in place.

Don"t know what buckwheat will do for you special to grow it 2x, then follow with wheat. On top of an old grass. Seems like a mono culture that wouldn"t be good for your soil.

Just idle thoughts, not sure what you are working with or what your goals are so only you really know what works for you.

Me, I"d get beans in there with an innoculant on it & have something productive going on to build up the N in the soil while controling the weeds better.

--->Paul

Thanks for all the advice. I should have stated this is just for food plots/wildlife habitat. Maybe I'll try the soybeans and I also have some cow peas. I don't have enough acreage for cash crops without destroying a lot of habitat. Wildlife is my goal: rabbits, deer, turkeys, released quail for dog training, and songbirds. My garden is the only thing that produces a crop for human consumption.

Larry in Michigan

I sowed rye on my garden last Fall and I mowed it off before plowing it under this Spring since it was getting tall. I had usually planted barley, but no one had any. Hal

1st, what was in the field before, when was it farmed last and what crops did it have, and do you know it needs attention. If you want to build up the soil use a natural/organic fertilizer (NOT Monty's, its not natural) to get the microbes and worms ect working the soil again, you could try AGGRAND but there are some other brands too. Could take a couple-three years